Flint and Silver: A Prequel to Treasure Island

Chapter 44

Flint was puzzled. The parrot wouldn't come back. It fluttered in the darkness like an owl, except that owls didn't cackle and groan.

Flint was used to the parrot flying off on certain occasions. He was far too sharp not to have noticed that. He'd put it down to the little peculiarities that all creatures have, parrots as well as men. But this was different. Usually the bird would settle in the rigging, or here on the island it would find the branch of a tree. He peered into the warm, smooth darkness and looked up at the enormous pines. Crickets chirped, the surf rolled, the stars glittered… and there came the bird again… a screeching fury like those in the Greek legends.

"Ah!" said Flint, as a claw scratched his face, dangerously close to his eyes, almost as if the bird were attacking him, almost as if it disapproved.

It came back again and again. It came out of the dark, howling and squawking. And all he'd been doing was settling Skillit and Cameron. Just a bit of fun, tickling them up with an inch of the cutlass point to make them run: just a jab here, and a stab there. And then a bit of sobbing and pleading from the pair of them, and one of them calling for his mother — Flint couldn't remember which — while the other fell to screaming and raving and damning Flint's eyes. And then Cameron managed to pop off all by himself, while Flint laughingly explained to Skillit that he'd taken such a liking to that gentleman's ears that they must come off for keepsakes before their owner was sent upon his way.

That was the source of the problem. Once Skillit and Cameron were quiet, the parrot had come back to Flint's shoulder. It was then that he'd attempted — in all innocence and meaning no harm — to feed it one of the ears. And that, unaccountably, seemed to have turned the bird's mind.

Screeching manically, it came again, and this time caught Flint an outright blow on the brow. It was attacking and no mistake. Flint was unnerved. He could have drawn steel and cut the bird out of the air. He could have used his pistols. But the bird was his companion and he wanted it back. He didn't want it dead.

Another strike, and that was it. Flint ran. He held his hands over his head and sped down the goat track to the forest with its undergrowth and intertwined branches where the bird could take no advantage of him.

And there he found darkness: utter, smothering darkness. So dark that nothing could be seen and nothing could be done. Not even the stars shone here. Not here in the foetid, stinking mould of rotting plants and wriggling insects: centipedes, millipedes, slugs and spiders, every one far bigger than a decent man would have wished, and proceeding in company with whatever else there might be that slithered through the night-time jungle. It was neither a cosy nor an inviting place. For once, Joe Flint had found a billet as slimy as the entrails of his own mind.

But billet it was. Flint was here for the night. He couldn't go forward through the invisible jungle, and he couldn't go back — not in the dark with an airborne demon trying to take his eyes out. So, with utmost reluctance, Flint sat down, his back to a tree, put his cutlass and pistols across his lap, and resigned himself to sleep. He told himself that he was bound to be safe, for the island had no leopards or panthers — not so far as he knew — and he had no fear of snakes, not in the daytime at least.

Just as he was falling asleep, he heard a fluttering high up above his head. He recognised this as the parrot, settling in for the night. His last thought was that at least he had a friend nearby.